MobileMe is dead, so what about that refund? (UPDATED)

MobileMe was officially killed off by Apple yesterday when iCloud was launched. Plenty of rumour sites had posted reports detailing how those whom had renewed their subscription within the last few days had recieved a refund of their monies even before the WWDC 2011 event began. To the best of our knowledge, nothing was mentioned at the Apple keynote to suggest what will happen to subscribers who are part way through a subscription period.

Yesterday, I hinted at the possibility of Apple giving pro-rata refunds or credit against iCloud. During the WWDC keynote it was made clear that iCloud is entirely free. Overnight I recieved the following email which makes me doubt the possibility of getting any money back since I’m six months into my current Family subscription:

Important information for MobileMe members.

Dear MobileMe member,

We’d like to share some exciting news with you aboutÂ iCloud â€” Appleâ€™s upcoming cloud service, which stores your content and wirelessly pushes it to your devices. iCloud integrates seamlessly with your apps, so everything happens automatically. Available this fall, iCloud is free for iOS 5 and OS X Lion users.

What does this mean for you as a MobileMe member?

When you sign up for iCloud, you’ll be able to keep your MobileMe email address and move your mail, contacts, calendars, and bookmarks to the new service.

Your MobileMe subscription will be automatically extended through June 30, 2012, at no additional charge. After that date, MobileMe will no longer be available.

When iCloud becomes available this fall, we will provide more details and instructions on how to make the move. In the meantime, we encourage you to learn more aboutÂ iCloud.

Sincerely,

The MobileMe Team

It’s the line “Your MobileMe subscription will be automatically extended through June 30, 2012, at no additional charge. After that date, MobileMe will no longer be available.” that give the biggest clue that there’ll be no refunds. I did suggest yesterday that as a worst case scenario this is what we’d see. Essentially, we’re all given a maximum of twelve further months service for whatever monies we’ve already paid and we carry on as we are, or forget what we’ve spent and migrate to iCloud to take advantage of it’s newer and better features once it goes live in Autumn (Sorry! Fall to all American readers!).

Apple is known for it’s ability to spin; essentially they’re launching a free service that does what the paid service currently does (and more) but rather than refund those whom have already paid for the paid service, Apple intends to keep our monies and make it sound like a cool thing to have done since they’re offering another x months free service on top of whenever our current service expires.

How do you feel about the lack of a refund? Are you cool with it or do you feel they should be refunding pro-rata as soon as iCloud goes live?

UPDATE:

It would appear that you can get a refund pro-rata from Apple. It’s not automatic. You have to apply for it and it involves cancelling your subscription. I won’t be doing this since I worry about the data I have stored I want to transfer to iCloud once it goes live.

If you have an active MobileMe subscription and would like to cancel it for a refund, you may do so at any time. If your subscription was activated with a MobileMe activation code purchased from anÂ Apple Retail Store, theÂ Apple Online Store, or anÂ authorized reseller, follow the instructions below to request a cancelation and refund. You will need to provide all required proof-of-purchase documentation.

If you also request a refund for any additional unused activation codes, Apple will send you an email requesting a scan or photo of your activation codes. Reply to that email with a scan or photo of your unused activation codes.